The Celestine Prophecy: An Adventure Page 3

  I swam back and pulled myself up on the wooden pier in front of the cabin. I knew all this was too much to believe. I mean, here I was hiding out in these hills, feeling totally disenchanted with my life, when out of the blue, Charlene shows up and explains the cause of my restlessness—quoting some old manuscript that promises the secret of human existence.

  Yet I also knew that Charlene’s arrival was exactly the sort of coincidence of which the Manuscript spoke, one that seemed too unlikely to be a mere chance event. Could this ancient document be correct? Have we been slowly building, in spite of our denial and cynicism, a critical mass of people conscious of these coincidences? Were humans now in a position to understand this phenomenon and thus, finally, to understand the purpose behind life itself?

  What, I wondered, would this new understanding be? Would the remaining insights in the Manuscript tell us, as the priest had said?

  I faced a decision. Because of the Manuscript I felt a new direction open in my life, a new point of interest. The question was what to do now? I could remain here or I could find a way to explore further. The issue of danger entered my mind. Who had stolen Charlene’s briefcase? Was it someone working to suppress the Manuscript? How could I know?

  I thought about the possible risk for a long time, but finally my mood of optimism prevailed. I decided not to worry. I would be careful and go slowly. I walked inside and called the travel agency with the largest ad in the yellow pages. The agent with whom I spoke said he could indeed arrange a trip to Peru. In fact, by chance, there was a cancellation I could fill—a flight with reservations already confirmed at a hotel in Lima. I could have the whole package at a discount, he said … if I could leave in three hours.

  Three hours?

  THE

  LONGER

  NOW

  After a frenzy of packing and a wild ride on the freeway, I arrived at the airport with just enough time to pick up my ticket and board the flight for Peru. As I walked into the plane’s tail section and sat down in a window seat, fatigue swept over me.

  I thought about a nap, but when I stretched out and closed my eyes, I found I couldn’t relax. I suddenly felt nervous and ambivalent about the trip. Was it crazy to depart with no preparation? Where would I go in Peru? To whom would I talk?

  The confidence I had experienced at the lake was quickly fading back into skepticism. Both the First Insight and the idea of a cultural transformation again seemed fanciful and unrealistic. And as I thought about it, the concept of a Second Insight seemed just as unlikely. How could a new historical perspective institute our perception of these coincidences and keep them conscious in the public mind?

  I stretched out further and took a deep breath. Maybe it would be a useless trip, I concluded, just a quick run to Peru and back. A waste of money perhaps but no real harm done.

  The plane jerked forward and taxied out to the runway. I closed my eyes and felt a mild dizziness as the big jet reached the critical speed and lifted into a thick cloud cover. When we reached cruising altitude, I finally relaxed and drifted into sleep. Thirty or forty minutes later, a stretch of turbulence woke me up and I decided to go to the rest room.

  As I made my way through the lounge area I noticed a tall man with round glasses standing near the window talking to a flight attendant. He glanced at me briefly, then continued speaking. He had dark brown hair and appeared to be about forty-five years old. For an instant I thought I recognized him, but after looking at his features closely, I concluded he was no one I knew. As I walked past I could hear part of the conversation.

  “Thanks anyway,” the man said, “I just thought since you travel to Peru so often that perhaps you had heard something about the Manuscript.” He turned away and walked toward the front of the plane.

  I was dumbstruck. Was he speaking of the same Manuscript? I walked into the rest room and tried to decide what to do. Part of me wanted to forget about it. Probably he was talking about something else, some other book.

  I returned to my seat and closed my eyes again, content to write off the incident, glad I didn’t have to ask the man what he meant. But as I sat there, I thought about the excitement I had felt at the lake. What if this man actually had information about the Manuscript? What might happen then? If I didn’t inquire, I would never know.

  I wavered several more times in my mind, then finally stood up and walked toward the front of the plane, finding him about midway up the aisle. Directly behind him was an empty seat. I walked back and told an attendant I wanted to move, then gathered my things and took the seat. After a few minutes, I tapped him on the shoulder.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “I heard you mention a manuscript. Were you speaking of the one found in Peru?”

  He looked surprised, then cautious. “Yes, I was,” he said tentatively.

  I introduced myself and explained that a friend had been in Peru recently and had informed me of the Manuscript’s existence. He visibly relaxed and introduced himself as Wayne Dobson, an assistant professor of history from New York University.

  As we spoke, I noticed a look of irritation coming from the gentleman sitting next to me. He had leaned back in his seat and was attempting to sleep.

  “Have you seen the Manuscript?” I asked the professor.

  “Parts of it,” he said. “Have you?”

  “No, but my friend told me about the First Insight.” The man beside me changed his position.

  Dobson looked his way. “Excuse me, sir. I know we’re disturbing you. Would it be too much trouble for you to exchange seats with me?”

  “No,” the man said. “That would be preferable.”

  We all stepped into the aisle and then I slid back into the window seat and Dobson sat beside me.

  “Tell me what you heard concerning the First Insight,” Dobson said.

  I paused for a moment, trying to sum up in my mind what I understood. “I guess the First Insight is an awareness of the mysterious occurrences that change one’s life, the feeling that some other process is operating.”

  I felt absurd as I said it.

  Dobson picked up on my discomfort. “What do you think of that insight?” He asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “It doesn’t quite fit with our modern day common sense, does it? Wouldn’t you feel better dismissing the whole idea and getting back to thinking about practical matters?”

  I laughed and nodded affirmatively.

  “Well, that’s everyone’s tendency. Even though we occasionally have the clear insight that something more is going on in life, our habitual way of thinking is to consider such ideas unknowable and then to shrug off the awareness altogether. That’s why the Second Insight is necessary. Once we see the historical background to our awareness, it seems more valid.”

  I nodded. “Then as a historian you think the Manuscript’s prediction of a global transformation is accurate?”

  “Yes.”

  “As a historian?”

  “Yes! But you have to look at history in the correct way.” He took a deep breath. “Believe me, I say this as one who has spent a lot of years studying and teaching history in the wrong way! I used to focus solely on the technological accomplishments of civilization and the great men who brought about this progress.”

  “What’s wrong with that approach?”

  “Nothing, as far as it goes. But what’s really important is the world view of each historical period, what the people were feeling and thinking. It took me a long time to understand that. History is supposed to provide a knowledge of the longer context within which our lives take place. History is not just the evolution of technology; it is the evolution of thought. By understanding the reality of the people who came before us, we can see why we look at the world the way we do, and what our contribution is toward further progress. We can pinpoint where we come in, so to speak, in the longer development of Civilization, and that gives us a sense of where we are going.”

  He paused, then added, “The effect of
the Second Insight is to provide exactly this kind of historical perspective, at least from the point of view of western thought. It places the Manuscript’s predictions in a longer context that makes them seem not only plausible, but inevitable.”

  I asked Dobson how many insights he had seen and he told me only the first two. He had found them, he said, after a rumor about the Manuscript prompted a short trip to Peru three weeks ago.

  “Once I arrived in Peru,” he continued, “I met a couple of people who confirmed the Manuscript’s existence yet seemed scared to death to talk much about it. They said the government had gone a little loco and was making physical threats against anyone who had copies or dispersed information.”

  His face turned serious. “That made me nervous. But later a waiter at my hotel told me about a priest he knew who often spoke of the Manuscript. The waiter said the priest was trying to fight the government’s effort to suppress the artifact. I couldn’t resist going to a private dwelling where this priest supposedly spent most of his time.”

  I must have looked surprised, because Dobson asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “My friend,” I replied, “the one who told me about the Manuscript, learned what she knew from a priest. He wouldn’t give his name, but she talked with him once about the First Insight. She was scheduled to meet with him again but he never showed up.”

  “It may have been the same man,” Dobson said. “Because I couldn’t find him either. The house was locked up and looked deserted.”

  “You never saw him?”

  “No, but I decided to look around. There was an old storage building in the back that was open and for some reason I decided to explore inside. Behind some trash, under a loose board in the wall, I found translations of the First and Second Insights.”

  He looked at me knowingly.

  “You just happened to find them?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you bring the Insights with you on this trip?

  He shook his head. “No. I decided to study them thoroughly and then leave them with some of my colleagues.”

  “Could you give me a summary of the Second Insight?” I asked.

  There was a long pause, then Dobson smiled and nodded. “I guess that’s why we’re here.”

  “The Second Insight,” he said, “puts our current awareness into a longer historical perspective. After all, when the decade of the nineties is over, we’ll be finishing up not only the twentieth century but a thousand year period of history as well. We’ll be completing the entire second millennium. Before we in the west can understand where we are, and what is going to occur next, we must understand what has really been happening during this current thousand year period.”

  “What does the Manuscript say exactly?” I asked.

  “It says that at the close of the second millennium—that’s now—we will be able to see that entire period of history as a whole, and we will identify a particular preoccupation that developed during the later half of this millennium, in what has been called the Modern Age. Our awareness of the coincidences today represents a kind of awakening from this preoccupation.”

  “What’s the preoccupation?” I asked.

  He gave me a mischievous half smile. “Are you ready to relive the millennium?”

  “Sure, tell me about it.”

  “It’s not enough for me to tell you about it. Remember what I said before: to understand history, you must grasp how your everyday view of the world developed, how it was created by the reality of the people who lived before you. It took a thousand years to evolve the modern way of looking at things, and to really understand where you are today, you must take yourself back to the year 1000 and then move forward through the entire millennium experientially, as though you actually lived through the whole period yourself in a single lifetime.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “I’ll guide you through it.”

  I hesitated for a moment, glancing out the window at the land formations far below. Time was already beginning to feel different.

  “I’ll try,” I said finally.

  “Okay,” he replied, “imagine yourself being alive in the year one thousand, in what we have called the Middle Ages. The first thing you must understand is that the reality of this time is being defined by the powerful churchmen of the Christian church. Because of their position, these men hold great influence over the minds of the populace. And the world these churchmen describe as real is, above all, spiritual. They are creating a reality which places their idea about God’s plan for mankind at the very center of life.

  “Visualize this,” he continued. “You find yourself in the class of your father—essentially peasant or aristocrat—and you know that you will always be confined to this class. But regardless of which class you’re in, or the particular work that you do, you soon realize that social position is secondary to the spiritual reality of life as defined by the churchmen.

  “Life is about passing a spiritual test, you discover. The churchmen explain that God has placed mankind at the center of his universe, surrounded by the entire cosmos, for one solitary purpose: to win or lose salvation. And in this trial you must correctly choose between two opposing forces: the force of God and the lurking temptations of the devil.

  “But understand that you don’t face this contest alone, “he continued. “In fact, as a mere individual you aren’t qualified to determine your status in this regard. This is the province of the churchmen; they are there to interpret the scriptures and to tell you every step of the way whether you are in accordance with God or whether you are being duped by Satan. If you follow their instructions, you are assured that a rewarding afterlife will follow. But if you fail to heed the course they prescribe, then, well … there is excommunication and certain damnation.”

  Dobson looked at me intensely. “The manuscript says that the important thing to understand here is that every aspect of the Medieval world is defined in other-worldly terms. All the phenomena of life—from the chance thunderstorm or earthquake to the success of crops or the death of a loved one—is defined either as the will of God or as the malice of the devil. There is no concept of weather or geological forces or horticulture or disease. All that comes later. For now, you completely believe the churchmen; the world you take for granted operates solely by spiritual means.”

  He stopped talking and looked at me. “Are you there?”

  “Yes, I can see that reality.”

  “Well, imagine that reality now beginning to break down.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Medieval world view, your world view, begins to fall apart in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. First, you notice certain improprieties on the part of the churchmen themselves: secretly violating their vows of chastity, for example, or taking gratuities to look the other way when governmental officials violate scriptural laws.

  “These improprieties alarm you because these churchmen hold themselves to be the only connection between yourself and God. Remember they are the only interpreters of the scriptures, the sole arbitrators of your salvation.

  “Suddenly you are in the midst of an outright rebellion. A group led by Martin Luther is calling for a complete break from papal Christianity. The churchmen are corrupt, they say, demanding an end to the churchmen’s reign over the minds of the people. New churches are being formed based on the idea that each person should be able to have access to the scriptures personally and to interpret them as they wish, with no middlemen.

  “As you watch in disbelief, the rebellion succeeds. The churchmen begin to lose. For centuries these men defined reality, and now, before your eyes, they are losing their credibility. Consequently, the whole world is being thrown into question. The clear consensus about the nature of the universe and about humankind’s purpose here, based as it was on the churchmen’s description, is collapsing—leaving you and all the other humans in western culture in a very precarious place.

  “After all, you have
grown accustomed to having an authority in your life to define reality, and without that external direction you feel confused and lost. If the churchmen’s description of reality and the reason for human existence is wrong, you ask, then what is right?”

  He paused for a moment. “Do you see the impact of this collapse on the people of that day?”

  “I suppose it was somewhat unsettling,” I said.

  “To say the least,” he replied. “There was a tremendous upheaval. The old world view was being challenged everywhere. In fact, by the 1600s, astronomers had proved beyond a doubt that the sun and stars did not revolve around the Earth as maintained by the church. Clearly the Earth was only one small planet orbiting a minor sun in a galaxy that contained billions of such stars.”

  He leaned toward me. “This is important. Mankind has lost its place at the center of God’s universe. See the effect this had? Now, when you watch the weather, or plants growing, or someone suddenly die, what you feel is an anxious bafflement. In the past, you might have said God was responsible, or the devil. But as the medieval world view breaks down, that certainty goes with it. All the things you took for granted now need new definition, especially the nature of God and your relationship to God.

  “With that awareness,” he went on, “the Modern Age begins. There is a growing democratic spirit and a mass distrust of papal and royal authority. Definitions of the universe based on speculation or scriptural faith are no longer automatically accepted. In spite of the loss of certainty, we didn’t want to risk some new group controlling our reality as the churchmen had. If you had been there you would have participated in the creation of a new mandate for science.”

  “A what?”

  He laughed. “You would have looked out on this vast undefined universe and you would have thought, as did the thinkers of that day, that we needed a method of consensus-building, a way to systematically explore this new world of ours. And you would have called this new way of discovering reality the scientific method, which is nothing more than testing an idea about how the universe works, arriving afterward at some conclusion, and then offering this conclusion to others to see if they agree.